Ulysses to them, and they proposed to give him employment at six hundred dollars a year; so, in March, 1860, he and his family went to Galena.

GRANT A CLERK IN GALENA.

He set up housekeeping in a prudent way. His clerkship was a general one. He had not yet developed the business faculty. He was better at telling stories than making bargains. His income did not meet his expenses. Hardscrabble had come with him. His brothers raised his salary to eight hundred dollars. With this he did better, and had begun to be more hopeful of a fair living. His father had got reasonably wealthy; the brothers had a good start; he hoped for a partnership soon.

THE OPENING REBELLION.

The presidential campaign of 1860 came on. Grant had never voted but once; that was against Fremont, and for Buchanan. He was ashamed of Buchanan. He had been a democrat in a quiet way, though his father and brothers had become enthusiastic republicans. He heard Douglas, and was dissatisfied with him. He was not a voter in Illinois, though he had began to feel much sympathy for the republicans, and when Lincoln was elected joined with his brothers in a celebration at their store.

When the war broke out he presided at the first meeting to raise a company of soldiers, yet another man was made captain. A neighbor took Elihu B. Washburne, member of Congress from that district, in to see Captain Grant. He invited him to go to Springfield with him in a few days. After much delay and confusion Governor Yates took him into his office to do the military part of the business. He soon brought order out of confusion. He was self-distrusting, and asked for no position, yet he wanted One of the clerks from the Galena store was one day in the Governor's office, and he asked: "What kind of a man is this Captain Grant; he seems anxious to serve, though reluctant to take any high position." The clerk replied: "The way to deal with him is to ask no questions, but order him, and he will

one.

obey." Just then a regiment from Decatur was disorderly and out with its colonel. The governor appointed Grant its colonel and ordered him at once to the command. Out of the confusion he soon brought order. In a few days Grant and his regiment were ordered to Missouri. He marched his regiment across the country for discipline.

In July Congress met. A delegation met to arrange army matters. E. B. Washburne urged Grant for a brigadier. Among some forty candidates he was the only one who received every vote.

BRIGADIER-GENERAL GRANT.

Colonel Grant at once accepted the new position, and soon was in southern Missouri, holding in check the armed and unarmed rebels. Learning of rebels centering at Paducah, Kentucky, he proceeded, without orders, to possess the town and capture a great amount of military stores. He was thus soon in the heart of the enemy's country and in possession of this strategic point on the Ohio, and at the mouth of the Tennessee river. He soon had a staff of intelligent and patriotic

men.

He was restive for action, and after too much waiting he received orders from Fremont to head off the rebels at Columbus, below Cairo, from reinforcing Price in Missouri. At once, he started a division down the west side of the Mississippi to Belmont, opposite Columbus, one down the east side in the rear of Columbus, and went himself down the river with three thousand men. At Belmont he had a sharp and victorious fight with the rebel detachment there, and returned to Cairo.

Here much delay occurred. Fremont was removed and Halleck put in his place, and army movements rested for a time. Sixty-five miles up the Tennessee was the rebel Fort Henry, and a few miles southeast on the Cumberland, Fort Donelson. Grant was anxious to capture these forts. Halleck put him off, and even censured him for interference. On the first of February, 1862, Grant received permission to proceed against Fort Henry. Commodore Foote was nearly ready, and they were

soon off. The land forces left the boats three miles below the fort, to attack in the rear. The gun-boats moved up to within good firing distance, and opened upon the fort, which surrendered in an hour and a quarter, before the land forces could get into position on account of the mud.

The next move was to be on Fort Donelson, twelve miles across the country. Foote went round with his boats. Heavy rains, flooding the country, kept Grant back a few days, but he moved as soon as possible and stretched his line around the fort from the river above to the river below. Foote's boats came up but could do but little, the batteries of the fort were so high. Grant opened all around upon the rear works of the fort. The fight was a severe one, but the rebels surrendered the second morning. There were about twenty thousand soldiers on each side, the rebels thoroughly entrenched, and yet they were fought out of their entrenchments and forced to surrender.

These were two great victories, early gained. They opened the way into the very heart of the rebel territory. These movements of Grant, the only ones that had hurt the rebels much, made him famous.

But General Grant pushed forward into the rebellious regions, up the Tennessee river into the south part of the state of Tennessee, and had different parts of his army at Savannah, Shiloh and Pittsburg Landing, places only a few miles apart. The rebel generals, thinking to dash unexpectedly upon one of his divisions at a time, and destroy them by piece meal, made a forced march and attacked him at Shiloh. It was a fierce attack and a desperate battle, lasting all day Sunday, the rebels slowly gaining ground all day. In the night Grant's expected reinforcements arrived, and he opened the battle early, to become master of the field. Hardly any one battle did the rebels more harm. The battle was fought on the sixth and seventh of April, Sunday and Monday. So great was the rejoicing over this victory, won by some forty thousand of our soldiers, that President Lincoln appointed a day of thanksgiving.

But it was not without trial to General Grant. He was winning

victory after victory. Some of the less fortunate generals were envious. General Halleck, his division commander, censured him for fighting without orders, and came into the field and took the command himself. Some accused him of being drunk, and slaughtering his men. This accusation often came up against him during the war, not because there was any truth in it, but because he had for a time, before the war, been subject to the drinking habit.

Halleck was slow, timid, halting; and the army did little else than use the spade for many weeks; but slowly he came to see that Grant was a winning officer, and gave him the command of West Tennessee. During the autumn he took Memphis, Jackson, La Grange, Iuka, and the regions about them. No one can read the story of that campaign without seeing that Halleck's jealousy of Grant put a stop to the victorious movements of our army in Tennessee.

But now Grant had his mind on Vicksburg, as the key to the Mississippi and the southwest. Early in 1863, he had the command of fifty thousand men, and all needful supplies. This movement upon Vicksburg was a great campaign, which many pages cannot adequately describe. It was attended with immense difficulties, which cannot be comprehended without a full geographical knowledge of the country around it. After many

attempts to get below Vicksburg, on the west and east, it was at last determined to run the batteries, with gunboats, steamers, and flatboats, and march the army down on the west side of the river, recross to the east side, and fight the way back in the rear of Vicksburg on the east. In twenty days he marched two hundred miles, fought five battles, took ninety guns, and captured six thousand of the enemy, killing and wounding many more. And all this was done to get into position to fight Pemberton and his army in Vicksburg. Many of his best officers, and even Sherman, had no confidence in the success of the movement; but, when accomplished, all could see that it not only destroyed the army in Vicksburg, and took that stronghold, but conquered the supporting armies behind it, and opened all that region of country to the Union cause. The whole southwest

was taken by this grand movement. On the fourth day of July, 1863, General Pemberton marched out, and gave his arms and the place to General Grant.

No words can tell the joy it gave the country. Henceforth, the complete re-establishment of the Union was only a question of time. After this, there were none to question the great military ability of General Grant, and his generous and loyal spirit. His two years of successes, without a failure, against trained generals of great ability, and as brave soldiers as ever went forth to war, put his name among the great commanders of the world. Whatever criticism may be made of him as a civilian, as a soldier he must be given a high rank.

The president, through the secretary of war, now consolidated the three western divisions of the army under General Grant, with his headquarters in the field. Chattanooga was the point he fixed on at once as his center of operation, and telegraphed to General Thomas to hold it. He telegraphed to Sherman, to Burnside, to Hooker, to reach Chattanooga with their armies as soon as possible. The rebels believed their position on Lookout Mountain impregnable. Jefferson Davis himself had visited it, and made a speech to the rebel army, there made secure.

All things being ready, on the twenty-third of November the battle opened. It lasted three days, and brought another great victory. Nothing more brilliant and satisfactory had yet been done. Grant said of it: "I presume a battle never took place on so large a scale where so much of it could be seen, or where every move proved so successful." President Lincoln thanked the commanding general and the whole army, and appointed a national thanksgiving. Halleck pronounced it "the most remarkable battle of history." The force of Grant was about sixty thousand; that of the rebel General Bragg about forty-five thousand, on chosen ground and in entrenchments and rifle-pits.

LIEUTENANT-GENERAL GRANT.

Before Washington's death, when a war with France was anticipated, a new office was created for Washington, which